


You've Got Two Options: Marriage or Teleportation

by Anonymississippi



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, General Danvers Week, Humor, Marriage of Convenience, Psychic Bond, some light sexy times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: Astra and Alex are detained on a planet after the portal back to Earth shuts down! However will they adapt to the societal expectations of a planet filled with... blue armored lobsters?





	You've Got Two Options: Marriage or Teleportation

**Author's Note:**

> contrived? yes. but they're gonna smooch, so that's all that matters :P

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Don’t be rude, Agent Danvers. You could do much worse than me, at any rate.”

Alex brought both hands together and pressed her fingertips to the middle of her forehead, hoping beyond hope that Astra really _didn’t_ know the language of the Cetians as she claimed, because what Astra was relaying to her sounded utterly wrong on so many levels. There was no reason for them to get hitched just to remain standing with all of their limbs in tact, no matter how conservative of a culture the Cetians lived in.

“Astra, that’s not the poi—you mean to tell me we’ve got to be _married_ just for the sake of housing before the portal reopens?”

“The fact that half of your clothes are burned off and they’re leaving me in your general vicinity indicates they believe we are already on that path, Alexandra,” Astra spoke through a stilted smile, nodding obsequiously to the very large, very blue alien with the very large, very blue ray gun that could do a helluva lot of damage on this planet powered by a white dwarf star.

“Cetians mate for life and have difficulty negotiating cultural differences with other species who don’t. They even work with their partners in similar careers, so it’s not absurd to believe they would think us—Alex, would you please just look like you are happy to be in my presence so we aren’t separated and detained?”

"Why would they detain us?"

"Fine... separate us."

"What's the big deal?!"

"Neither of us would survive the transport," Astra hissed, wilting slightly under the beady gaze of Blue Lobster Gunman.

With Alex’s transmissions down and Astra’s powers on the fritz, the pair of them could do little more than wait for the DEO to realize they’d left two agents behind on their element retrieval mission to Cetia and get the portal back to full power. Alex flinched when Astra reached for her hand, thinking she was trying to go for Alex’s favored alien phaser, thought it was not the case. _This_ time, Astra really _was_ reaching for her hand, but that didn’t mean Alex didn’t need to keep a good eye on that gun.

Despite the whole, you know, _lasers for eyes_ thing, Astra still liked to blow stuff up.

And Alex liked to pretend she didn't get a kick out of it.

The Cetian guard nodded congenially—or, what Alex thought looked congenial for a nine-foot tall lobster alien—and _click-clacked_ directions to the second in command, a lobster alien who was a shade lighter than navy, but who possessed a number of knotty bumps upon body parts Alex guessed paralleled human shoulder blades. The whole, skeleton-on-the-outside of the body thing was kinda throwing her off. Lobster alien number two strode forward and released a long moan, like Chewbacca giving birth to a Beluga, and proceeded to pull glyphs of steam from the air before the pair of them. He tossed them all together with his overlarge pincers and swirled them about into some whispy concoction of alien hieroglyphs.

“What in the hell is that?” Alex murmured, not even fighting when Astra gripped a little more tightly with her fingers and pulled her so that they stood shoulder to shoulder.

There was a rather large rip in her shirt, one that had grown when a Cetian chemical had splashed against her stomach and had proceeded to eat away at the material like acid on bone. And then her pants were... uh... compromised. She was missing a solid three feet of fabric from her trouser leg, the material ripped away by one of the more hostile Crab species who inhabited this planet (but who were not so civilized as the nine-foot lobsters).

So with all the shredded clothing and large claws, maybe Alex was showing a little more skin than normal. And maybe Astra’s fingers were brushing her thigh. And maybe that idea wasn’t altogether unpleasant for Alex, not with her recent revelation that she was far more inclined to have drinks and sex and potentially spend her life with women rather than with men; however, the _click-clack_ of the lobster people’s ceremony had her less concerned with Astra’s dexterous, tapered fingers dancing against her skin than with how large and heavily armed and armored the blue lobsters were.

“I might have consented to the marriage rights, considering our other option was detainment in separate compounds. They were going to use a teleportation method that I’ve seen do damage to other humanoids, so I thought you’d rather marry me in a sham ceremony than have your organs liquefied in the teleportation field.”

“How the hell do they teleport with liquid organs?” Alex groaned.

“Something about their shells… they block the radiation needed to power the—it’s really not that important, Alex,” Astra said, eyeing the blue lobster standing at the end of the platform.

The gun glowed lavender and Astra’s eyes bugged wide, wide enough for her to bump her elbow into Alex’s ribs in what Alex was very much hoping looked like a loving gesture, given the tense atmosphere of the lobsters on the portal platform.

Astra brought their joined hands forward quickly, and blue lobster number two proceeded to empty the invisible vat of gaseous hieroglyphs onto their hands, so that they swirled round their wrists and wriggled up the cuffs of their sleeves (or what remained of Alex's), tickling hairs and bathing their limbs in a warm, pleasant sort of tingle. It felt like dipping her hand into a warm body scrub, like she imagined Cat Grant might get at famous massage parlors (not that Alex ever had time for such indulgences); but the glyphs also produced a bizarre effect: Astra seemed to be _glowing_ right in front of her. And it also didn’t help that whenever Astra’s fingers shifted against her hand, even to pull away in the slightest, her skin would suddenly flare and freeze, quick enough that ice-like crystals would form. Alex kept a firm hold on Astra’s fingers upon discovering this side-effect. The last thing she needed was a frost-bitten limb from a planet of the Conservative Crustaceans and Liquefied Livers.

“What’s happening to—”

“Shh, they’re explaining our duties to one another.”

“They’re clacking louder than tap dancers in echo chambers, there’s no way you speak this language.”

Astra’s right brow nearly flew off her head and that vein that popped out when she got frustrated was standing at prominent attention as her jaw clamped down and she grit her teeth. But because General Tight Ass liked to irritate Alex to no end, she stuck her tongue out, and proceeded to click and clack with a series of noises created with lots of teeth and saliva that no humanoid should be capable of producing. The Blue Lobster Ceremony Officiate stopped his clacking and his antennae twitched, seemingly in Astra’s direction. Astra stopped clacking and the lobster produced two short clicks and then a wave of a claw that rivaled the hydraulic powers of the Jaws of Life.

“He has given me permission to translate to you, so I implore you, _please_ just pretend you are happy for such a joyous occasion or one of us will likely be returning to your planet with a brain resembling your human oatmeal. We were already under heavy surveillance with the recovery mission and I do not want to impinge upon their good will any further.”

“So I just smile and act like I’m in love with you?”

“And do make it convincing, Alexandra,” Astra said, bringing their joined hands up and placing a kiss against Alex’s knuckles. It felt like a dragon with icicle teeth and a magma tongue was swallowing her hand, but Astra didn’t even flinch. She just lowered her voice and placed her forehead against Alex’s ear: “You are a terribly easy read.”

Alex hummed as if she wasn’t at all concerned with the polarizing temperature shifts and life-threatening Lobster people standing guard before them. She just smiled and squeezed Astra’s hand tighter, digging her nails into the back of the woman’s wrist to get a smidgen of revenge since she wasn’t all super-powered on Cetia. Lobsters One and Two were soon joined by Heavily Armed Lobsters Three though Eight, and one Lobster-Bishop, if the pointy white hat (hats? _socks?!_ ) sheathing both antennae were any indication of the Lobster’s status.

“Oh, _Rao_ ,” Astra griped, the smile on her face pulled tighter and slightly manic. It was the kind of smile that Alex sometimes wore when operations in unfamiliar territories were going Really Badly but she was trying to pretend they weren’t for the sake of preventing escalation in the field.

“What’s happening?”

“They are bringing in their religious leaders for further… _clarification_ on our joining.”

“Which means…?”

“They believe we are faking, Alexandra.”

“Why is it so important that we be—like, together, anyway?”

“Would you rather them think us lost refugees who share their appreciation for committed relationships and conservative values or mercenaries sent to mine that damned chemical from their caves?” Astra whispered through her teeth, maintaining a smile that was beginning to look like her go-to villain smirk that Alex reluctantly found super sexy—uh, attractive. Definitely not sexy, because _Kara’s aunt_ and _reformed super villain_ and _utterly infuriating_ but… not sexy. She misspoke. Mis-thought.

Anyway, lobster wedding.

“Those are your two options,” Astra reiterated.

“Love you, babe,” Alex turned into Astra and gripped her bicep with her opposite hand, the hand not currently engulfed in invisible fire. She tucked her chin overtop Astra’s shoulder and whispered into her ear, “Tell me what we should do.”

Bishop Lobster of the Blue Guild and White Antennae Hats Who Also Carried the Large Atom-Scrambling Phaser continued gesticulating wildly and grandly, prompting applause and this low-frequency hum that left Alex a little… dizzy. The whole affair was less bizarre and scary and like something out of a Lovecraft story and more… pleasant. Marriage to Astra. Hmm. Not bad at all, Alex thought.

“Alex, there seems to be a… psychic link?”

“Huh?” Alex asked, tilting her chin off of Astra’s shoulder to pull back and look at her eyes. They were pulsing gold around the edges, blown and glazed. Everything was blue lobsters and icicle fingers and Astra holding her hand. Alex couldn't really concentrate with the humming, the icy heat; she just wanted to flop through that portal trudge home, and grab a drink big enough to forget Astra's golden stare. “What the—you mean we gotta link our minds together?”

“Alex,” Astra drew her closer, even closer than they already were, despite the crowded press of shell and spine-shattering claw congregating on the platform. She pressed her forehead against Alex’s and Alex felt that light delirium override her higher brain power once again. “I do not believe it will—our anatomy is nothing like theirs. It will not likely affect us.”

“Are you sure?” Alex asked, blinking against the daze. But the lobsters looked on expectantly, so Alex whispered: “That seems kinda…invasive.”

Astra chewed her lip and drew back from Alex, dropping her voice for her confession: “I would much rather risk embarrassment than losing you, Alex.”

"What do you have to be embarrassed about?"

Astra didn't answer; instead, she turned back to the Sergeant Reverend Bishop Lobster with the Sacred Antennae Socks and nodded, then took both of Alex’s hands in hers as she put about a foot of space between them. The glyphs looped about their arms and worked their warm ways over shoulders and torsos and up toward their heads. It felt rather like being swallowed by a body-sculpting tornado with a penchant for therapeutic massage.

“Alexandra, my pledge to you suspends any and all alliances I have made or ever will make. All that is mine, I freely give to you: my mind, my body, and my soul.” Astra spoke loudly, confidently, and pulled their joined hands up between their chests, gathering Alex into her and pressing insistently at her lower back to pull her flush. The Lobster conducting the ceremony continued clacking, and then Astra repeated the translation: “Ours will be a life joined by our sacred bond, as issued by the spirits of Cetia. This pledge I make: my body is your body and my gods your gods, my home your home, and my thoughts—no, wait a moment—”

_My body is your body…_

Pulsing beats resounded through Alex’s skull, skipping lightly and far more quickly than a human’s resting rate. But it was familiar to Alex, for she had been reading Supergirl’s heartbeats on scanners for going on three years now, and Astra’s for nearly two years as well, ever since she abandoned Myriad and Rozz, ever since her own reasoning and Kara’s love had dragged Astra away from her crusade (even though Astra retained that stubbornly beautiful—uhm, stubbornly annoying Kryptonian superiority complex).

_My gods, your gods…_

“Astra?” Alex asked, for beneath the heartbeats was this inexplicable peace Alex had never known. It felt like warmth and light and security. It felt like… like no matter what Alex did, no matter how much she drank, or how many aliens she killed, or how poorly she’d ever performed in school or how many soldiers she failed to save, it was… it wasn’t _alright_ , but it was… acceptance. Grace, perhaps. Its easy warmth was different from the temperature fluctuations the intangible glyphs produced, and Alex wondered if it was, in purest essence, Rao’s light.

_My home, your home…_

Alex suddenly smelled basil and Parmesan; she felt wet steam billowing over her back burner that refused to work as well as the others, especially when she was cooking enough spaghetti to feed half a dozen humans, a pair of Martians, and two Kryptonians. She tasted a rich pinot noir, Lucy’s choice, and homemade snickerdoodles from Kara—she felt a rush of euphoria and the overzealous slapping of Kara’s palm against her own hand when they guessed the final word in Taboo and demolished everyone else on game night. And Astra and Hank, poor aliens, sat back and watched as words flew around them but they were there, they were _present_ , Astra had been coming to her gamenight for months and months now.

_My thoughts, your thoughts…_

Fear and apprehension and passionate fury. Alex was looking through eyes that weren't her own, feeling emotions that she'd never felt. Tilting her head up, she saw herself walking roughly fifteen yards ahead in heavily forested terrain. It was an out-of-body experience, but the surroundings resembled that operation in the Rockies that she’d run point on, back when they were trying to detain that wounded Tryvorian that had wrecked an entire resort. Thank god the media had blamed it on grizzly bears, but Alex hadn’t seen the poisonous bards coming—yet, she _had_ felt Astra slam into her and roll down the snow-covered hill, shielding her as the rest of the agents surrounded the beast.

She felt worry and relief flood her body even though Alex couldn’t remember feeling any of those things when it had happened months ago. She’d been far too hyped up on adrenaline.

But this warm feeling, stirring in her chest, spreading from where Alex’s hands rested against Astra’s uniform (was it Astra? Were these memories from Astra’s perspective? Astra’s feelings? Astra’s thoughts?) it filled her and expanded, surging all the way out of her fingertips.

And yet there was a host of other emotions swirling inside as well: fear, in the back of a DEO van, as Alex saw her own body clad in black and loaded down with weaponry; frustration, at seeing herself poke a needle laced with Kryptonite into Astra’s skin; affection, watching as she threw her arms around Kara’s shoulders and bid her goodnight; heat, desire, and then immediate embarrassment, for her voyeurism had been discovered (she had not meant to follow a sweaty Alex Danvers into the showers when she herself was not sweaty, but her suit needed mending from a previous tear in battle, and the standard DEO polos were located in the lockers, and Alex was… removing her t-shirt and… testing the water while sliding those sport shorts down long, lean legs that had kicked her feet out from under her only moments ago); and then there was love, unbridled and pure and certain, for Alex watched as she relived her latest injury, one of many injuries in the field.

But this time she'd taken the blow to her head, a concussion in the dessert when Kara had freaked out, when Hank had told Alex they’d all been so worried… oh, there was so much more blood than she remembered dripping down her ear, running down her nose, over her cheeks…

But Astra was cradling her, her face pinched in on itself, Kryptonian heart thundering as she flew Alex back to the DEO and kissed her bloody forehead and promised to keep her safe… promised her in Kryptonese… Kryptonese Alex could _understand_ because Astra was sharing her _thoughts_ —

Alex jolted back to present to see a teary-eyed Astra millimeters from her face, her chin gaping slightly.

“Telepathic link," she whispered, closing the distance between them to press her dry lips briefly against Alex's own. "I… I’m—I’m sorry, Alexandra."

The Lobster Fold of Terror seemed mollified for the moment. The humming subsided and her head cleared instantly, so Alex tucked her chin into Astra’s neck. She couldn’t face the beady black eyes and skittering antennae, not after feeling so much so quickly.

Alex could feel moisture at her ear, and wondered—surely Astra wasn’t _crying?_

“I didn’t know the ceremony would entail such… intrusion. I have violated you and I… I’m sorry.”

“What are they saying?” Alex mumbled.

Astra pulled their still-linked fingers up between their chests again and kissed Alex’s hand one final time. Clicks and clacks and the clatter of claws greeted the action, and Astra’s brow wasn’t pinched as severely as it had been.

“Applause,” Astra breathed.

“They’ve bought it?”

Astra was not smiling when she responded: “It would seem so.”

Alex felt Astra’s body sag, but she still held her close. Held her tight enough that Alex could feel Astra trembling.

“And now…?”

“Now we wait in their designated quarters until Winn replies to the rescue transmission we sent,” Astra nodded solemnly, click-clacking in response to Bishop Lobster Leader.

“We sent that hours ago,” Alex whispered.

“The portal is still fully functioning, Alexandra,” Astra murmured, tugging her forward as they descended the platform.

They followed one of the lesser lobsters into the mountainside atop which the portal was constructed; they scuttled through a large crevice and then turned down a cavernous hallway Alex supposed was full of dancing Oysters and psychotic sentient Sea Urchins with Barbs of Death. It was dark in the caves and even after their psychedelic marriage of convenience, Alex couldn’t help but hold Astra’s hand all the tighter.

“It might only be a day or so,” Astra reassured her, murmuring in her ear in the darkness.

“Oh,” Alex answered, unsure as to why she’d almost hoped it might take longer. “Alright, then.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When they dropped hands in the private cave quarters, Alex was happy to see some of the sun shining through two paneled windows on the far side of the room. The caves were carved into a mountain range that overlooked a lovely purple valley, rich in rare elements that Earth, unfortunately, did not have (but Earth and the DEO kinda needed those elements to accommodate all the extra species cropping up, and had even been granted immunity for retrieval by one sect of the Cetians; however, the Cetians weren’t terribly excited about Earth’s lackadaisical concerns with modesty, reproduction, expense, booze, etc., so Alex was slowly coming to realize they were never _exactly_ welcome, merely tolerated).

At least the marriage seemed to buy them both time for rescue.

Within their grotto-like quarters, there was a large basin filled with water, a bowl of something Alex supposed was fruit, and two sheaths of white fabric that did not look customary to this planet. Perhaps it had been taken from another planet, for the Cretians did not wear clothes over their blue shells, aside from the religious garb on the Lobster Bishop’s antennae. There was of course, only one sleeping mat, hardly more than a foam-like pad placed atop a bed of sand, because, well… lobsters likely had little use for textiles. Alex pulled one sheet up and sighed, wondering how in the hell she was gonna fashion the small square of fabric into anything resembling clothes.

“Are you hungry?” Astra asked, busying herself with emptying her pockets and studying the fruit laid out on the table. “As soon as I reprogram the receiver, we should be able to keep a constant open channel with the retrieval team when they come for us.”

“You’re certain Winn received the signal we sent before we were…forcibly escorted?”

“Yes, that is what your little green lights mean, according to the rudimentary technical training I received upon joining your organization,” Astra grumbled, sliding the battery door of the receiver open and rotating the batteries within, which… did absolutely nothing. Though it did keep Astra’s head down on the devices, and kept her talking about something other than their enlightening marriage ceremony.

“How do you know the Cetian language?” Alex asked.

“I stayed six months on one of their moons, a colony originally designed to sustain populations should their caves crumble. I learned a lot about their culture, but… well, it is very foreign to either of ours.”

Alex nodded, pacing over toward the window. Beyond, flashes of light beamed skyward periodically, but the patterns were sporadic enough that Alex couldn’t make out a signal.

“That is their teleportation pad,” Astra explained, moving toward the other window.

She planted her feet firmly and clasped her hands behind her back, staring out at the landscape. Below them were purple flowers and red mountains of sandy brown and golden rock. It wasn’t picturesque, not in Alex’s mind anyway, but Astra looked… well, she stood proudly against the window, but that didn’t stop the waves of embarrassment radiating as strongly from Astra as Axe spray from a teenage douchebag. Embarrassment, regret, a hint of self-loathing as well… Alex had known alien empaths and pitied them, and now, she was somehow emotionally linked to Astra. Things felt… tense, when in the past, when Astra had come over to her apartment to watch movies, or “to study human culture” as Alex had initially termed it (they weren’t _hanging out_ , far from it, they weren’t friends), everything had been remarkably easy. Pleasant, even. Alex chewed on the inside of her jaw and shuffled closer to Astra.

“How long you think this telepathic link is going to last?” Alex asked. “Is that what it is? Telepathy?”

“Empathy, telepathy… many components, all of which I could not name,” Astra sighed, her shoulders sinking in the slivers of sunlight. “Can you still hear my heartbeat?”

“Yes,” Alex murmured, taking a step nearer Astra, sharing her window. “And you're hungry. I can feel it."

"We're _both_ hungry."

"Yeah, kinda," Alex said, knocking her knuckle absently against the rock wall. "But the, the feelings part...would you like to discuss—”

“No, no I would not,” Astra cut her off and Alex nodded. “The link will deteriorate once we breach the planet’s psychic layer so you will not have to—you can forget I—that is, we will not be linked any longer. We may resume routine.”

“The routine where you spend your weekends on my apartment couch?” Alex questioned, no longer feeling the heightened emotions manifested as temperatures, but instead as pressures, textures... like her skin scraping against the rock wall and a hand grasping her hip. Astra stood a full three feet from her but it was almost as if she were pinning her in place.

“We have routine..." Alex pressed. "Where we spar in the Kryptonite training room until I get you to break a sweat?”

“What... other routine do we have?” Astra responded, confused. Alex felt her confusion, felt her hesitation, her anxiety, her… _fear_.

“Our normal one, where we run over ops and go to target practice and hang out with Kara and act like we don’t—like we aren’t—shit, your heart is beating so fast.” Alex placed her hand against her own chest and wondered if she could stand it, _physically_ , the depth of what Astra felt for her.

“You are rambling and I… I do not know what you are trying to say,” Astra peeked up through fluttering, uncertain lashes that dared Alex to put a name to what they were. To what they _could be_.

“Am I making you nervous?” Alex asked her, edging an inch closer. “Is this okay?”

Astra looked ready to jump out the window. “Is _what_ okay?”

“Can I hold your hand?” Alex asked, for it was all at once paramount that she be touching Astra. That she… that she always have the option to touch her, if Astra would allow it, and that Astra always had the option to touch her as well, for Alex suddenly desired that touch so completely it overwhelmed her.

“The ceremony has concluded,” Astra drew back to the window, refusing to meet Alex’s gaze. “Temperatures on our extremities should return to anatomical equilibrium within—”

“Astra,” Alex smiled, holding her hand out in a ‘pause’ sort of motion. “I just… I want to touch you, okay?”

“Why?”

“Because I think we’ve been dating for over a year now,” Alex wiggled her fingers in the open space before her and Astra studied them, reaching out tentatively, to fit them in the hold they’d kept throughout the awkward tension of the marriage ceremony. “And I don’t want you to feel embarrassed.”

“Alexandra…” Astra’s face fell, her chin pressed nearly to her neck.

“If I repeat those rites… even without the weird whispy letters… will you feel how I feel?”

“There’s no need,” Astra whispered. “They believe us. Even beneath the psychic layer, they cannot penetrate our thoughts as humanoid species. They won’t keep you in another station now that they think we love—”

“This isn’t for them,” Alex declared, averting her eyes before curling Astra’s fingers in her grip, and bringing her knuckles toward her lips. She kissed them, but it didn’t feel like the first time. “My body is your body,” Alex whispered.

Astra’s fingers tightened suddenly.

“My gods… or lack thereof… are yours.”

“You believe in Kara,” Astra said, her eyes watering, her voice shaking. “You… y-you believed in me.”

“My home is your home.”

“Alex—”

“My thoughts, your thoughts,” Alex said with a smile. “And my heart—”

Astra pulled her against her chest and sealed their mouths together, kissing her so fully she couldn’t help but feel just as dizzy as she had during the ceremony. Alex felt her pulse and Astra’s pulse and all kinds of click-clacking beats in her head, overrunning the sting of anxiety and replacing it with relief, with gratitude, with pleasure and sweet, soft comfort. Contrasted utterly by hard cave walls and a Lobster guard monitoring the door on the outside of their chamber on a foreign planet several galaxies over from their own but none of that _mattered_ , because Astra was kissing her and Alex was kissing back, tugging at a bottom lip that had been driving her wild for longer than she realized.

Alex sucked in a breath because… because oh, Astra’s face was lightly flushed and her eyes look a little dazed and _woah,_ Astra has some serious lung capacity if she thinks she can keep going. She allowed Alex to catch her breath but then there was tongue and flashes of skin and moments in the sparring room and at her apartment, at Kara’s favorite pizza place and in the field and then on the quiet of her balcony; then there was _even more skin_ with their bodies sliding together and her heart rate skyrocketing and heat and sweat and that lung capacity meant Astra could probably—

“ _Rao_ , Alex,” Astra bit down on her lip and roughly shoved Alex up against the cave wall.

Alex felt pain bloom along her spine, thrilling, biting pulses of pleasure that pricked her skin and left her feverish and allowed her to experience these fleeting emotions—pain and lust, all rolled into one, and then _Astra’s_ emotions—recklessness, concern, and then the realization that Alex was into a little rough-housing…

Rao, could her eyes get any _darker_?

Astra yanked at the hem of Alex’s shirt and got her hands underneath, palms full of skin and curving rib and a flexible torso Alex saw riddled with bruises in her mind’s eye. They were naked in bed back on Earth and Alex had her hand tangled in that damn white curl; she was shouting while Astra bit and sucked at her navel, corkscrewing her fingers into her center.

“Alexandra,” Astra gasped, shutting her eyes momentarily to collect herself. There wasn’t really any blocking Astra out of her head at this point, so she just let her focus rove up and down that black suit and thought about Astra’s superhuman breath-holding capabilities and what marvelous tasks she could set her to. She thought about Astra on her knees and _herself_ and all fours and her poor neighbors in the apartment next to hers.

“Can you… can you really extend your leg that high?” Astra asked her, dipping down to nibble at her earlobe.

With Alex's tactical uniform burned away, Astra had free rein on several open expanses of skin. Her hands gravitated downward and Alex pitched her hips forward, nearly whimpering. It was heady and euphoric and inundating, her own emotions and Astra’s _combined_.

“Wh—what?” Alex panted, tilting her head to the side to give Astra better access. "Astra, oh fuck, please..."She can’t remember when her hips started rutting against Astra’s center, but she knows, as a carefully-trained government agent, that Astra is giving her a hickey the likes of which she has not seen since freshman year of college.

Astra doesn't dare touch lower there in the cave but in Alex's head, in _Astra's_ head, her eyes are shut and her neck is straining and Astra is working her through the best orgasm of her life.

“I can read your thoughts, Alexandra.”

Astra spoke hot and wet at her neck on this planet, but somehow thoughts of her straddling Alex's hips in bed overpowered reality. Astra was single-minded in her purpose; she rose and descended on powerful thighs, her tumble of curls flowing over her shoulders and brushing her breasts as she placed her hands on either side of the mattress and gazed down at Alex, loving every piece of her.

“You want me to mark you. You want my mouth between your legs…I can…you want me to…” Astra’s focus dropped to her waist. Her gaping jaw gained some muscle function once again, for her gaping expression morphed into the cheekiest smirk Alex had ever seen on her beautiful alien face.

“Oh… you naughty human.”

The smirk softened into a smile soon enough, but Alex was having some difficulty dealing with all the emotional whiplash that was so palpable it felt physical.

She truly couldn't tell if she'd just come in her head or up against the cave wall. And Astra looked just as spent, hair tangled because Alex had drug her fingers all through it as they'd traded kisses. As Astra had felt her up against rock on a planet that was neither of their own.

Alex registered one of Astra’s errant thoughts and immediately wanted to slow everything down (and simultaneously burst into tears).

“You think I’m beautiful?” Alex asked, brushing strands of Astra’s soft curls behind her ears.

“I think you’re the most marvelous human I've ever met," Astra said, pulling Alex into another kiss. "Brave," Astra said, punctuating her words with kisses. "Intelligent." _Kiss_. "Passionate." _Kiss_. "Righteous." _Kiss_. "And more beautiful than even... the sunsets of Krypton."

"Astra."

Alex didn't do _giddy,_ but she was damn close. It was hard not to feel that way, when Astra was standing there and telling her these things and _feeling_ these things, looking like a damn runway model in her standard Kryptonian jumpsuit of sexiness.

Astra snorted and mumbled against Alex’s lips. “ _Jumpsuit of sexiness_ is not a term the Kryptonian magistrates had in mind when selecting the military uniform.”

_Shut up,_ Alex thought hard, hoping it would stop Astra from speaking so they could focus on the kissing, and eventually get to the undressing, and the bending and the sucking and the sex and the post-orgasmic cuddling that Astra really seemed to be into, according to Alex’s new mind-reading capabilities.

But beneath the heat and the headiness of reciprocation was a touch of negativity; maybe not negativity, per se, but it was an emotion Alex has difficulty pinpointing until she pulled back and settled her hands on Astra’s hips. She stood there, feeling _everything_ between them, breathing hard while they paused. Collected themselves. They'd gone so quickly so fast and none of it would've ever happened if they'd only arrived five minutes earlier to the portal.

Alex drew back from Astra and let her head plonk against the wall of rock behind her. She tried to scan herself, tried to scan  _Astra_ , but she wasn't an emotion detector. Or at least... that's not how this psychic link was working. It took time to process, and only after several long moments could Alex finally put a name to it: doubt.

Perhaps a little nervousness.

Clouded by elation, but it was there, Alex felts it, then thought to herself about the circumstances—the cave, the Lobster Wedding of Terror, the retrieval team from the DEO, Winn and Kara.

Oh no, Kara… what would Kara think? Then there was J’onn and the DEO, and Astra was technically a subordinate, which would see them making all kinds of trips to visit Pam. 

But still, she needed to deal with the immediate issue… with Astra, and the Cretians, and how they’d ended up light years away from Earth and technically married. Linked enough for her to know that Astra’s _in love with her_.

“Alex?” Astra released her and took a step back, her expression settling into an easy grin. “Alex, it’s okay.”

“It’s…it’s kinda overwhelming, sharing your head,” Alex confessed, moving to press a reassuring kiss against her perfect alien lips. “A little scary but… I’m not afraid of it, if that makes sense?”

“My brave Alexandra,” Astra said. “It won’t… we will not remaine connected in this way, once we return to Earth. I do not think I could... there's so _much_ of you.”

“It’s… a lot, that’s for sure,” Alex agreed, slipping out from her pinned position on the wall to breathe, in and out and deep, for just a second. Hands on her hips and another combing through her hair, she turned back to Astra but didn't reach for her. “But I’m glad it happened, I… I don’t know if I want to be married, exactly, but I’m glad to have done it, to know what you feel.”

“I love you,” Astra said confidently, standing straighter and looking like her super-powered self once again. Alex knew it couldn't be the sun; it was the wrong power source. But maybe... well, she liked to think she made Astra feel so powerful again.

“I… know,” Alex answered, prompting Astra to follow her down to the sandy bed covered by the not-so-fluffy blanket. “It took Lobster extortion and the threat of organs in a blender, but I know. And I… Astra, I’ve never… I can’t say—”

“I know, also,” Astra said, laying them back, staring into Alex’s eyes with the glimmer of joyful tears. “I know you do not—you do not feel—”

“But I could! I almost...” Alex pressed her palm directly over Astra’s heart. It was still thundering beneath her ear, like reassuring white noise she could fall asleep to every night for the rest of her life. “And I bet… I bet I’ll be able to say it, to _feel_ it, a lot sooner than you think.”

“Is that so?”

“I think falling in love with you might be one of the easiest things I ever do,” Alex confessed. Astra smiled and bent down, and Alex was rewarded with a deep, consuming kiss. “It would be even easier if there weren’t… other things to consider…”

“Kara?”

“Supergirl,” Alex nodded, though that wasn’t all of it.

“You believe others will not take you seriously if I continue to work for you and we… pursue a relationship?”

“Something like that.”

“You have designs upon acting as future director.”

Alex's half-closed lids shot open. “What? No, I could never—”

“I feel it, Alex,” Astra said, tucking her hand between their chests, pressing the tips of her fingers to Alex’s sternum. “I know what you know, and what you want…for now, anyway.”

“So what do we do with all that knowledge, then?”

“My vote is for sleeping, perhaps," Astra said, lying back beside her. "We have done little of it since the element excavation and proceeding escort at the portal.”

Alex moved to prop herself up on an elbow, to stare down at Astra, who did look a touch more exhausted than her usual Kryptonian constitution showed. Astra shifted the hand covering Alex’s heart and moved it to her cheek, stroking lightly along the jaw bone. “And if that allows you to hold me as we doze… well, I have certainly woken in less pleasant circumstances.”

“The light on the receptor’s gone yellow,” Alex reported, looking back to the device they’d abandoned on the table when all the emotions came crashing through their personal barriers. She turned into the touch at her cheek and kissed Astra's palm, mumbling, “DEO’s in transit.”

“Time enough for us to sleep, then,” Astra said.

Alex settled down beside her and got as comfortable as a sand bed and a semi-dirty blanket would allow, opting to pillow her head against Astra’s shoulder instead.

“And when we get back?” Alex asked, breathing the question into Astra’s neck.

“We try, Alexandra,” Astra answered, running her fingertips against Alex’s scalp. Alex couldn’t help but press kisses against her throat, kisses that whispered _soon_ and _yes_ and _I am so excited to try with you_ , _with you, and no one else_ , even if that didn’t quite equate to love…yet

Even if Alex wasn’t quite that brave, not yet.

“You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met,” Astra murmured as her eyelids drooped shut, a peaceful smile overtaking her features.

And resting there, with arms wrapped around each other and joined by mandated lobster matrimony, Alex actually felt like she was. Brave enough to get back home. Brave enough to take on their next big bad. Brave enough to face Kara, and J’onn, and the rest of the push-back at the DEO.

And brave enough—braver than she ever thought she could be—to love Astra just as deeply as Astra loved her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> yall again i don't even know it was all rock caves and lobster aliens for a hot minute but then that second half turned ~tEnDeR~ and I couldn't stop myself from letting them cuddle for a while. this was not beta'd well so please ignore the typos galore
> 
> anywho general danvers week has been a blast and i have so much content to consume and read and i'm just a little elated seeing that fic count tic up on the filters. y'all are so great for reading and loving this ship it's honestly the coolest tiny mighty fandom


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